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Mercedes College students and CBCG volunteers planting samphire in the nutrient stripping wetland at Point Fraser.
Samphire is a succulent native plant which grows around the Swan River estuary. Sometimes featured on cooking shows!

Long-necked tortoise or turtle? Correctly a tortoise is a land dwelling animal with feet. This is a turtle, with webbed flippers for swimming and walking. Australia does not have any native tortoises, but the names tortoise and turtle have been used interchangeably in the past.

Rada and Greg just couldn't resist doing a bit of weeding.

They say never work with children and animals, but I don't think we've had so much fun in a long time than at the Town of Vincent's Wild Wetlands fun day at Banks Reserve.

Warren, James, Greg, Rada, Sally and Dudley manned the Claise Brook Catchment Group stall selling local native plants and offering activities including making origami plant pots from newspaper, giant board games, badge making and a tour of the foreshore restoration led by Shenandoah Bruce from Syrinx Environmental.

Other activities on offer included a Eco Treasure Hunt with GPS & Compass, Reptiles, Birds of Prey, Kanyana Native Animals, Peg from MRC Roaming Recycler and Brenda and Rob from Environment House. Our thanks to the Swan River Trust for the loan of equipment and the Town of Vincent for organising the event and supplying plants.

Here is the board game, which kids young and old really enjoyed.

Jack proudly shows off his badge.

Foreshore restoration tour.

Clancy and Jessie, our youngest members.

Warren babysat Clancy while Julie and Jessie checked out the pythons at the next tent.

Matt shows off his python boa to Jack.

And at the end of the day Greg packed everything onto his trolley and walked home.

The Swan River Trust has provided funding for water testing across the Mounts Bay Catchment. Following heavy rains, on a wild Monday in July, Rebecca, Marion and Sally took samples from 5 sites across the catchment. We'll be sampling every month until the end of the year so if anyone would like to assist, please get in touch.

Marion and Rebecca do something mysterious with the equipment at Lake Monger.

Sally and Marion collect sediment at the Hamilton Interchange. These photos might look sunny, but it rained for much of the day.

Thanks to new gloves, provided by the Town of Vincent, there were no excuses not to get stuck into the winter weeds sprouting up around the wetland.

Jennine won the stylish attire award for this natty outfit. Here she is labelling her gloves so they don't go astray.

We'd all like to thank the Town of Vincent for our lovely new gloves.

Now that the winter rains have started, we can start planting. We planted 5 trays (about 200) sedges and 10 swamp banksias (Banksia littoralis).

Dudley, Greg, Chris, Rob, Rada and James prepare for planting.

James and Dudley plant sedges at the top of the creek channel, near where the water bubbles up. The water source for the wetland is runoff from nearby streets. The sedges in the creek channel will filter out sediment and pollutants before the water reaches the wetland.

Greg (above) and Rada (below) planting sedges along the creek channel.

Giving a newly planted swamp banksia a drink. Because swamp banksias grow around wetlands they are used to a bit of water, so can also tolerate the reticulation likely to be found in home gardens.

And we finish with a cup of tea and home-made cake, courtesy of Rada's mum. Below is a rare photograph of the photographer, who is usually behind the camera.

In May, members of our group assisted in a Reconciliation Ceremony held on the Swan River at Banks Reserve. Nyungar Elders spoke of their connection to the area and our group outlined some of the history since 1829. The ceremony concluded with a performance by the renowned Wadumbah Aboriginal Dance Group.

Our youngest members, Jessie and Clancy, with the Wadumbah Aboriginal Dance Group

Rebecca, Debbie and Sally visited the Mounts Bay Catchment to identify sites for water quality testing for which the Swan River Trust has provided funding. We spotted this excellent sign at the Mabel Talbot reserve, put up by the City of Subiaco.

PLEASE DO NOT FEED US!

As lakes dry out we naturally move to more permanent water bodies.

Feeding us tricks us into hanging around when conditions are not great. Drinking from the drying pools can make is really sick.

As part of normal seasonal changes, the lake dries out over summer and fills up over winter, creating a healthy natural environment for native fauna.

We mulched the bare ground beside the path.

Several wheelbarrow teams kept the mulch spreaders busy while Chris (below) cleared out the accumulated litter and organic matter from the streambed in preparation for replanting next month.

Our first plant sale for 2010 was very busy. Here Caroline and Gavan provide advice on plant selection. Holding the sale outside the Loftus library, community and recreation centre attracts lots of new buyers.

Some of the trees are in flower, attracting insects and birds. The last two months we have enjoyed the company of a black-shouldered kite, keeping watch from the Norfolk Pine in the park, then swooping down over the (dry) wetland. We continued collecting seed from the variety of sedges around the dry lakebed.

Weeding is the main business in February, but we also collected seed from sedges to propagate more plants for future planting when the rains arrive.

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